Outdoor Recreation

Death in the Backcountry

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Essay by Allen Best

Outdoor Recreation – February 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

NEWS ACCOUNTS about fatal avalanches — and we’ve had nine deaths in the West this winter — sometimes give the impression that the difference between life and death is one easy piece of technology: an avalanche beacon.

If only the buried victim had been wearing a beacon, goes the story line, a life could have been saved. That turns a beacon into something resembling a safety belt for snowmobilers or skiers. I think the analogy is more like wearing a safety belt while going over a cliff.

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Hero’s body recovered after reservoir thaws

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor Recreation – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

We often read about heroes these days in various contexts — and here’s one close to home at Spinney Mountain Reservoir in South Park.

The reservoir opened for fishing on April 3, a few days after authorities recovered the body of a drowning victim who gave up his life jacket so that his companions could live.

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The Colorado Race Track?

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor recreation – October 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Colorado Trail extends through the mountains for 468 miles from Durango to the southwest metro area, and Central Colorado hosts many of those miles.

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Just another whiner in the wilderness

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Essay by Rebecca Clarren

Outdoor Recreation – January 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

I PROBABLY WATCHED The Sound of Music nearly 50 times before I was 10. I liked everything about it — all those brothers and sisters, the outfits made from old curtains and especially the escape scene where the von Trapp family flees the Nazis by hiking across the border.

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Another triumph of hope over experience?

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor recreation – December 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Small ski areas come and go, almost like mining camps. That analogy certainly holds for Conquistador near Westcliffe, whose site is now undergoing reclamation, just like an old mine.

But sometimes there are revivals, like the one proposed for Cuchara Mountain Resort on the west side of the Spanish Peaks south of La Veta.

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Volunteers needed to repair mountains

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor recreation – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

“Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints.” That’s good advice for back-country travel, but if too many people leave footprints, the landscape still suffers.

That’s the situation on many of Colorado’s 54 14,000-foot peaks, where footprints evolve into trails that damage tundra and disturb wildlife.

With some work, much of this damage and disturbance can be repaired or prevented, and that’s where the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative comes into play.

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Register for the great outdoors without goiong outdoors

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor recreation – June 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Now you can go on-line to renew your Colorado registration on a boat, snowmobile, or OHV (off-highway vehicle).

State law requires that these be registered each year, with the fees going toward trail maintenance and safety programs, among other things.

Owners get mailed notices, and with the information on those cards, they can go to www.coloradoparks.org and renew instantly. They’ll be able to print a temporary registration, and the regular certificate and decals will arrive by postal mail in a week or so.

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Who’s to blame for those user fees?

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Essay by Ed Quillen

Outdoor Recreation – June 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT IS NOT FASHIONABLE to express sympathy for government employees, especially those of the federal government, but I always feel sorry for forest rangers.

Why? In high school, many of us took those personality-profile tests that were supposed to match your characteristics with a career. If you were a self-starter who also scored very low in the “social interests” section — that is, you didn’t much like being around people or working with others — then the guidance counselor invariably suggested that you should become a forest ranger.

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Manifold Destiny

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Essay by Allen Best

Outdoor recreation – June 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

FIRST CAME the backcountry ski huts. I loved them, but they took “back” from the backcountry. Summer brought different toys, similar dynamics. Gleaming four-wheel beasts of burden were just the start. New toys, the all-terrain vehicles and mountain bikes, broke down distances and, by extension, forests.

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The Oxymoronic Outdoor Products Industry

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Essay by Hal Clifford

Outdoor Recreation – October 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

CALL ME NAIVE, but I thought the outdoor experience was about being outdoors. If I’m to judge by the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, held in mid-August in Salt Lake City, it’s about the idea of the outdoors.

Salt Lake’s tornado notwithstanding, it was a huge event. By my guess about 400 retailers set up elaborate booths in the Salt Palace Convention Center. One account said 18,000 people — wholesalers and retailers — were expected. I was there on my publisher’s expense account to sign a book, but I snuck away to spend some time wandering the aisles. I wanted to know: What, exactly, are several hundred retailers trying to sell to us schmucks who consume the products of the outdoor industry (a fascinating term, if you think about it)?

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Continental Divide Trail gets going after 30 years

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor recreation – August 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

Continental Divide Trail gets going after 30 years

The concept of a 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail, akin to the Appalachian Trail in the East and the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierra Nevada, has been around for years without much activity.

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Driving off the pavement

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Article by Don Pennington

Outdoor recreation – July 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

Most of us probably spend more and more of our waking hours working to support a family and the expense it incurs. Today, many of us work two jobs or work both days and evenings to make ends meet. Because of these things it has become more and more important to incorporate into an ever smaller amount of time, the recreational experiences that make our time and effort at work worthwhile.

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Walking in the Woods

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Essay by Tom Lynch

Outdoor Recreation – July 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

Most of us, if we watch much TV, have seen the Coors Light “Tap the Rockies” commercials. A shot of snow-capped peaks appears. Then the forms of several young men and women, vastly over-sized, loom above the mountains. They are engaged in a sporting activity — tossing a football or Frisbee — and, of course, drinking Coors Light.

The message of the commercial, in addition to the obvious plug for the brew, is that the vast Rocky Mountains are really just a big playground.

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What people say about those trails in the woods

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor Recreation – June 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ever wonder what people write in those registers you see at trailheads in the National Forests?

We asked, and Barbara Timock, public affairs officer for Pike and San Isabel National Forests, sent us a list of comments received in 1996 from the registration sheets in the Bridger (Wyoming) Wilderness Area:

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No more free entry into the Great Sand Dunes

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor recreation – February 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

On clement days in the off-season, Great Sand Dunes National Monument was a great deal: Free.

But those days are past. On Jan. 1, it became one of 50 National Park Service areas in a “demonstration fee project.”

This means that the rangers will be staffing the gate all year, instead of just in the summer.

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What we had here was a failure to communicate

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Brief by Central Staff

Outdoor Recreation – December 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

What we had here was a failure to communicate

Like the national forests, the Arkansas River is a realm of multiple uses, and sometimes those uses conflict.

That happened last spring, when upstream tourism and downstream irrigation needed the river at the same time. Upstream wanted low water, and downstream needed high water.

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